Excuses

When unbelievers investigate Jesus Christ and the Truth, they should end up at a decision point: accept or reject. I'm not talking about the point where there is still a lack of information, that's usually the excuse of the agnostic or the ignorant. No, I'm talking about the point where unbelievers realize their need for Jesus, understanding that all that was said in the Bible was in fact true, that Jesus is the Son of God. This becomes an existential and personal fork in the road for unbelievers, whether they have all the information or not. C. S. Lewis, who was an agnostic and became "the most reluctant convert in Great Britain", came to that point and knew that to accept was life and to reject was damnation, and yet hesitated because of his sin nature and used the excuse of lack of information. But he chose Jesus, with the Holy Spirit's prompting, of course, and became one of the greatest Christian writers of his century. The amount of information available now to prove the truths of the Bible is staggering compared to what C. S. Lewis had to work with. A good "quick" look into investigating any of these truths is to read Lee Strobel's entire The Case for... series or even Josh McDowell's Evidence that Demands a Verdict. I say "quick" because the work was already done and summarized and written as fairly as possible (both men were atheists when they started their study), and it's in quotations because those books take a little time to read. At least it's better than researching for ten years.

Some excuses people use when they come to that point of realization:

1) "I don't think I have all the information yet, so I'll hold off on Jesus."
This is usually the sorry excuse of agnostics and maybe some atheists. Most of the time, it's used by evolutionists who, hope against hope, wait for evidence to prove Darwin's theory. This is assuming that the evolutionist realizes there is absolutely no evidence since Darwin's day that proves evolution. Too bad most evolutionists believe there are facts and evidence to support macroevolution. Or that excuse could be used by the agnostic who is seriously seeking, but is deeply programmed by his intellectual laziness that he won't make the decision out of sheer inveteracy, a la C. S. Lewis.

2) "I'm not ready to make a decision because I'm not good enough."
This is the same as "I'm not worthy" or "I don't deserve it." No, kidding, we ALL don't deserve it! And that's why Jesus Christ did all that work for us because we don't deserve it and we can't do anything about it. We deserve only hell and He rectified our situation. Time to decide.

3) "I'm not ready to make a decision because I don't want to give up my lifestyle."
This person doesn't have an excuse. It is merely a pride and selfishness issue. He doesn't realize the power of God's Holy Spirit in changing a person's life and would rather not follow through with the decision. It could be that this person really doesn't have all the information; he could have missed the obvious and important point that there is something better after choosing Jesus. To this person, I can only pray that the Holy Spirit speaks to him and for a brother/sister to step out in faith and explain a few more things to answer any lingering questions. Outside of that, it links to the next excuse...

4) "I don't want to decide now because I may make Jesus/God/Christians look bad."
This excuse is similar to #2, except this time, it's based on something outside the unbeliever. It can be tied in with #3 because his bad habits are so deeply ingrained, he doesn't think he can ever be free of them. To this person, I must say that some Christians make Jesus/God/Christians look bad. Well, at least some unbelievers acknowledge the purity of Jesus when they say "I don't think Jesus would have done that". As with the previous excuse, it only shows he doesn't realize the power of God's Holy Spirit in changing a person's life and would rather not follow through with the decision. Those who use this excuse prevent their own change.